So I got home just before 4:30 pm EST...popped open the bottle as we started to get the steaks and other things ready. After a few minutes, poured the first two glasses through my nice new Vinturi aerator (thanks again Krugsters! 
).....
Then even before doing the first sniffy-sniff or tasting, I prepared the steaks. Rubbed on a mix of crushed fresh garlic and a garlic/rosemary mix, then coated the steaks with Kosher salt to sit for the next half hour...
Then poured about half the bottle into my lovely WD Decanter...
While my mom was slicing up an eggplant, a pepper, and an onion...I quickly prepared a simple cheese/quince platter from the leftovers from the Sat tasting party:
As Cheron asked me to state exactly how it was prepared, this is what we did for the eggplant to be grilled. Put the slices of eggplant and pepper in a baggie and sprinkled with ground garlic sea salt and some olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Shook it up in the bag and then put it on the grill.
Then in a frying pan, we sauteed some homegrown red & white onions and mushrooms in a little olive oil.
The steaks had the kosher salt washed off, then dried, then tossed on the grill. And I put a little bit of McCormick's Montreal seasoning on them while they were cooking.
Sliced up the steak, poured the onion/mushrooms over it, served up the eggplant/pepper mixture and viola!!
So the steak turned out absolutely amazing, tasting great and being one of the most tender steaks any of us had ever had. Mom was blown away at how much the Kosher salt did for it (and now plans to do the same thing for some lamb she has).
But anyway, on to the important thing and why you are all reading this lovely novel/picturebook I'm writing....THE WINE!!!
The color is a nice deep garnet red, though when held up directly to the light brings out a nice glowing bright red. Interesting contrast between light directly behind it or not. The legs of this wine are long long stretching beautiful legs that you would love to have wrapped around you in a loving embrace of bodily flesh (too graphic?...well, too bad...that's what you get from my mind 
).
I took my first sniff-sniff and taste of the wine probably after it had been in my glass (after going through the Vinturi) for at least 15-20 minutes. There was some initial heat and very little fruit on the nose, which I expected with it still being so soon. I was surprised however, that it only had moderate tannins. Yes, the cheeks did pucker up a bit with some swishing in the mouth, but not as much as some other wines I've had that were decanted even longer. Must be the Petit Verdot that helps balance it.
Some fruit started surfacing after about an hour (I think I was still on that first glass and hadn't moved onto the decanter'd wine yet, but I could be wrong as I didn't mark that in my notes). It's not blueberry, that much I could tell. I'm thinking more a dark blackberry. Definite hints of spice on both the nose and palate. Maybe a slight floral bouquet, and the heat has subsided almost entirely. It has a very nice long finish.
While finishing up with some of the last bits of dinner, still had a bit of the Manchego cheese & quince and this was rather tasty with the wine. It would certainly go great paired with some nice sharp cheese and quince.
After a bit over two hours or so, the wine was really opening up. Still quite robust and smooth, flavors and nose integrating nicely and still having a nice long finish.
This was a fabulous bottle (which I still have almost half left for tomorrow...and half a steak...maybe a stir fry tomorrow) and I'm so very thankful for WD sending it over to me. I personally plan to wait at least a year and a half or two before I open up my first bottle, and will try to hold onto my other bottle to see how well it's doing 6-10 years from now. I now wish I had gone in for 3 AND gifted myself some.
BRAVO TITUS!!!
My Cellar
In a Romance.Woot with cheron98
NYC Tastings
